Climate change and Greta Thunberg.

[Punter08]

Can you not stop playing the man (teenage girl) instead if the ball (her critical wake up call to us all?). She has clearly stated that she considers her Aspergers Syndrome to be her 'Superpower' & I believe it to be true. It's what gives her her intellectual maturity way beyond her years, her laser like focus on the issue she's passionate about (climate change & how to slow it down before it runs away & screws us all & half of the species on the planet). It also gives her the ability to resist the vile attacks she's had to endure more than a 'normal' girl her age as she ironically due to her diagnosis finds interactions with others more difficult but it also helps shield her emotionally from it because she doesn't engage with it the same way a 'normal' Gurl her age would. Whatever the fuck normal is...thank gofpd she's not normal that's what I say. She's way above normal she's extraordinary...

Dear god did you sleep at all last night or just rant online here and elsewhere. Greta is rubbing of on you dear sir.

[gonzo76]

Here you go: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/im.../#.XYykJZbhSEc

An excellent article. Though it's prob tltr for most, who will still believe they know more about climate than, you know, climate scientists...

[gonzo76]

Also, I quite like this study https://www.newsweek.com/media-air-t...ntists-1454498

Indeed. You know that in other news, autism causes vaccines, right?

[Punter08]

The problem that no-one wants to address is that there is simply too many of us. Too many Homo Sapiens with our wants and needs for our one planet and all the other species that share it with us.

Thats true. I must have overlooked this post yesterday.

[Punter08]

Here you go: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/im.../#.XYykJZbhSEc

Thanks ISB. No definite answers from what i can see but i only read it once and im a bit wrecked today but this part of the article explains things well.


Scientists have actually long known that something something other than CO2 sets things in motion when Earth enters and emerges from ice ages: shifts in solar radiation reaching Earth due to variations in the Earth’s orientation to the Sun. (These are known as Milankovitch cycles). Then other natural feedbacks kick in — most especially changes in carbon dioxide.

Scientists haven’t fully teased out all of the details yet. But in general, the picture looks like this:

As Earth starts to warm at the end of an ice age due to increased solar radiation reaching Earth, ice sheets and snow begin to contract. These surfaces are very reflective. So as they shrink, less sunlight is reflected back into space. This helps to enhance the warming. The warming causes ocean waters to give up CO2 — because CO2 is less soluble in warmer water. This strongly enhances the warming, which reduces the ice and snow, which causes more warming, which increases the CO2, leading to even more warming.

The bottom line is that a change in the amount of solar energy reaching Earth may get things going, but it’s CO2 that plays the dominant role.

This general picture leaves out some important details, such as the role of fresh water flowing into the oceans as ice sheets melt. A 2012 study led by Jeremy Shakun, now a Boston College climatologist, examined some of these details. Skeptical Science posted an excellent explainer about the results here. But the upshot of the study was this: “While the orbital cycles triggered the initial warming, overall, more than 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occured after that atmospheric CO2 increase.”

I’ll finish with one recent piece of research in which a team of five scientists examined the role of greenhouse gases in temperature anomalies, including the overall warming trend, since the onset of the industrial revolution.

Here, too, commenters on this blog often claim that since recent periods in Earth’s past were almost as warm as it is now, we can’t know for sure that the CO2 we’ve added to the atmosphere is responsible for the observed recent warming.

But in their paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists confirmed that our emissions of greenhouse gases, “especially CO2, are the main causal drivers of the recent warming.”

[Wolverine]

One environmental issue has been weighing on my mind of late. The call to reduce our beef industry.

What will happen to the green areas where cattle graze and what industries will take their place ?

Farmers aren't just going to give up that land as a nature preserve.

Is there a plan or is this more thoughtless virtue signalling that could result with a far worse conseqences ?

[Punter08]

I got a couple if hours thanks lol!
Sure if I can’t vent/rant here about the coming environmental apocalypse where can I? The only consequence free zone left for this anonymous mad arse...

Nice one. I watched the latest episode of spotlight a history of the troubles and couldn't get to sleep afterwards until about 3am.
Plenty of coffee for me today and no green. i dont need it. Well maybe a joint or 2 later of some nice kush.

[SteveB]

Recent periods in the earth's past were not as warm as it is now. We know this from records and from tree-ring data and so on. The last five years—from 2014 to 2018—are the warmest years ever recorded. Most likely the earth is warmer now than at any time that humans have existed. 2019 looks like it will continue the trend. The temperature has been rising steadily since the industrial revolution and it is still rising. Global warming is not about "ice-ages" or cyclical changes. It is about burning fossil-fuels and increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is also about deforestation; the removal of the trees that absorb carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. The move carbon dioxide = more greenhouse effect and more heat. Short of us being hit by a large meteorite or a catastrophic large volcanic eruption or similar, (which we certainly do not want) the temperature is set to keep on rising as green-house gases increase.

[TonyB]

Sea ice vs land ice. Glaciers are on land. Sea ice melting has no impact on ocean levels.

There is no land at the Arctic which is melting.
The Antarctic is getting more frozen.

So given the North Pole is a giant ice glacier which is mostly under water, and given ice has a bigger volume than water, how come the Arctic melting causes the sea level to rise.
I just don't get it

[gonzo76]

There is no land at the Arctic which is melting.
The Antarctic is getting more frozen.

So given the North Pole is a giant ice glacier which is mostly under water, and given ice has a bigger volume than water, how come the Arctic melting causes the sea level to rise.
I just don't get it

There's a lot to unpack there. Most of Greenland is ice covered and melting. It is in the Arctic. The statement that Antarctica is cooling is also a very very dubious one, though it is true that Antarctica is less affected to date by global warming, probably because it is so cold there that warming effects will take longer to see impact. The locations where the cooling has been seen are at the south pole research station which is really far away from the oceans the suggested reasons for seeing this cooling are many and complex but in the end inconclusive. However the Antarctic Peninsula and western Antarctica have warmed and since records begun and measurements began there about 80 years ago the average temperatures are higher and the ocean has warmed significantly.

However to your point, the Arctic cap melting would not add to sea level rise, but all that cold fresh water entering the North Atlantic could put the gulfstream at risk and if that happened, we'd know all about it.